I took a lot of heat lately bunting with Pedro shutting me down, 1 out men on 1st and 3rd, late in the game down by 1...Arky Vaughan hits lots of dp's.
Anyway, the live league I'm in now, I've had 2 people squeeze bunt with middle of their line up hitters with a lead. that seems lame and it's hilarious I did it once and got all kinds of garbage.

Posted by blaisebbss8 on 7/1/2013 8:10:00 PM (view original):With the ridiculous rate runners that runners don't score from 3rd with less than 2 outs I don't see it as that big of a deal.

I disagree completely. Squeezing with anyone but a weak hitter or pitcher (and not in a pinch-hit situation) is a cheap way to get a win via a flaw in the engine.

In RL runners score from 3rd with less than 2 outs just over half the time — 51% since 2002 (SABR); 55% since 1950 (fangraphs). I doubt our success rate is far off that, and I'd expect it to be much lower given the prevalance of stacked bullpens in WIS compared to RL.

Posted by blaisebbss8 on 7/1/2013 8:10:00 PM (view original):With the ridiculous rate runners that runners don't score from 3rd with less than 2 outs I don't see it as that big of a deal.

I disagree completely. Squeezing with anyone but a weak hitter or pitcher (and not in a pinch-hit situation) is a cheap way to get a win via a flaw in the engine.

In RL runners score from 3rd with less than 2 outs just over half the time — 51% since 2002 (SABR); 55% since 1950 (fangraphs). I doubt our success rate is far off that, and I'd expect it to be much lower given the prevalance of stacked bullpens in WIS compared to RL.

I should say that my point of view is when the infield is not drawn in.

Fair enough. Personally, I play all the time while I'm working (I work a ton of hours at times but work at home so have that flexibiity) and can't watch closely enough to bring the IF in every time a runner gets to third. If I'm playing someone I know will squeeze, I only play those games when I can pay attention.

FYI, because I'm in a slow time at work and always have fun determining whether anecdote is fact, I went through a reasonably large sample of games to find out what the success rate is for scoring runners from third with less than 2 outs. I did 38 games by taking each of my teams and clicking on a date, then choosing the first and last game played on that date so teams/parks were randomly selected. To avoid an undue influence going to fresh pitchers or the top of the batting order, I checked for that situation going from the start of the game, the third inning and backwards from the ninth about a third of the time each. I only counted the first instance I saw in each game, and in that sample the runner scored 71% of the time. (27 scored, 11 did not). Obviously not a scientific enough study to prove anything, but it seems extremely likely that it's close enough to determine that our success rate at scoring the runner is at least somewhat higher — not lower — than real life.

Me neither. But we tend to remember frustrating things like not getting a run home while the more ordinary result of getting the run home doesn't make the same impression. We remember Bill Mueller's winning HR off Rivera more than we remember the 6,125 times Rivera probably struck Mueller out in similar situations.

One of the big problems with the bunt in WIS is that there doesn't seem to be any such thing as a safety squeeze, where the pitcher or Mark Belanger bunts to avoid a double play, and most of the time the runner at third holds. In WIS, the runner at third almost always goes home even without a H&R on, which is very unrealistic. And that most of the time he scores. In Live, my complaint is when owners either let the tiring pitcher stay in to hit in the 9th when there are stud hitters sitting on the bench, or worse bring a pitcher or speedy defensive specialist in to pinch-hit for a slugger, because it increases the chances of the squeeze working. The only defense against the latter is to let those games sim.

In real life, if a manager sent Ted Lilly up to pinch hit with a guy at third and Darryl Strawberry is sitting on the bench, Lilly is going to end up with a fastball in his nose. And yes, that has happened in a game here. As has an owner taking out his #3 hitter to bring in a bunter, Elmer Steele (avg. .051) pinch-bunting for Tris Speaker (.351), etc. etc.

WIS could solve all the animosity by reducing the success rate of the suicide squeeze, implementing a significant pickoff risk on suicide squeeze, and holding the runner a significant percentage of the time on safety squeeze, especially on first-and-third bunts when the theoretical purpose of the bunt is to avoid a double play and push the trail runner to second. First-and-third bunts ALWAYS send the runner home, which is absurd. But I'll be old and gray before that happens. Oh wait, I am old and gray. Never mind.

What always gets me is that the sac bunts actually work at a rate commensurate with the RL suicide squeeze success rate. The problem many/most LIVE owners have is that they don't think it would work that often if you used it as much as some guys do, or at least used to. Fair point. What really gets me, though, is that these same owners will take a guy that stole 15/16 bases IRL and steal 90 or 100 bags with him. Or even draft some guy that was 5/5 and costs 300k as a pinch runner and steal 50+ bases with the guy. You really think Chase Utley would be a perfect base thief if he was running every time he was on first? Of course not. I hate playing games with the owners whose guys are going to end up with double their RL SB totals or more. It's a huge abuse of the salary system in LIVE since SBs are charged by both success rate and total, so using them far more than IRL is basically getting free speed. I still play those guys, largely because I need games, but I'll often let games with them sim if we've both made the min already...

yes, if realism is your goal, then don't pitch Joss, or any deadball pitcher (do you really think they'd only give up a few homers if they pitched today?). Don't steal over and over with 5/5 guy..and on and on...win how you can...if someone can't watch infield in then it's an advantage for the one who is watching. It's "live" play

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/2/2013 1:35:00 PM (view original):What always gets me is that the sac bunts actually work at a rate commensurate with the RL suicide squeeze success rate. The problem many/most LIVE owners have is that they don't think it would work that often if you used it as much as some guys do, or at least used to. Fair point. What really gets me, though, is that these same owners will take a guy that stole 15/16 bases IRL and steal 90 or 100 bags with him. Or even draft some guy that was 5/5 and costs 300k as a pinch runner and steal 50+ bases with the guy. You really think Chase Utley would be a perfect base thief if he was running every time he was on first? Of course not. I hate playing games with the owners whose guys are going to end up with double their RL SB totals or more. It's a huge abuse of the salary system in LIVE since SBs are charged by both success rate and total, so using them far more than IRL is basically getting free speed. I still play those guys, largely because I need games, but I'll often let games with them sim if we've both made the min already...

Truth. way more frustrating then the bunters.

has anyone other than me kept track of there suicide squeeze attempts?